Making use of philosophy

Contemporary Review, July, 2005 by Chris Arthur

The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century. A.C. Grayling. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. [pounds sterling]12.99. ix 275 pages. ISBN 0-297-4819-4.

'If thought were the mere discovery of interesting facts', R.G. Collingwood suggested, 'its indulgence, in a world full of desperate evils, would be the act of a traitor'. With images of terrorism, war, AIDS, famine, poverty and other 'desperate evils' appearing daily in our media, the activities of university philosophy departments can often seem like treachery. 'We try to understand ourselves and our world', Collingwood argued, 'only in order that we may learn how to live'. In the specialised discourse of contemporary scholarship, the connection between learning and living is often lost. Unless philosophical reflection can show its relevance to everyday life, it risks being seen as guilty of the betrayal R.G. Collingwood condemned. If it can redeem philosophy from such a charge, A.C. Grayling's book is to be welcomed. Eschewing specialist diction, the author provides, in admirably uncomplicated prose, a series of bite-sized reflections on a range of personal and public concerns, together with sketches of some dozen assorted thinkers.

Readers are offered a smorgasbord of topics, each covered in just a few pages--everything from Reading to Monogamy, Resurrection to Just War, Plato to Edward Said, White-Collar Boxing to The Uses of Philosophy. Indeed the range is such that one is sometimes reminded of the tongue-in-cheek titles of Hilaire Belloe's collections--On Nothing, On Everything, On Anything, On Something, and finally just On. These gently poke fun at the way in which the miscellany (which is how Mr Grayling styles this volume), far from leading to the heart of the matter can sometimes end up as rather vacuous meanderings, Certainly A.C. Grayling's reflections are penned at a safe distance from the sort of academic articles pilloried by Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim for their 'niggling mindlessness', their 'funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts', and the way in which they throw 'pseudo-light upon non-problems'. But this collection of 'conversational contributions' which modestly 'pretend to nothing definitive' but offer only 'remarks from a point of view', are not so much applications of philosophy as a collection of thoughtful fragments on diverse topics. 'Applying philosophy to the 21st century' suggests the provision of a robust set of intellectual instruments for the dissection and solution of some tough problems. There is little trace here of the analytical scalpels, needles, saws and tweezers that would equip readers to engage in rigorous thinking. We are supplied with pointers rather than probes.

Professional philosophers will probably be as dismissive of this book as the educated person-in-the-street is likely to be of the intricate minutiae with which such philosophers are preoccupied. Such different evaluations raise the question of the extent to which philosophy is open to the amateur. It would be foolish to confuse the appurtenances of professionalism--mastery of a technical vocabulary, familiarity with an ever-burgeoning specialist literature, applying all the apparatus of scholarship (footnotes, citations etc.)--with competence. Equally, it would be unwise to assume that what is easily accessible is always accurate.

Bertrand Russell was one of the very few modern philosophers able to engage both professional and lay audiences. In The Problems of Philosophy he wrote that philosophy 'removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect'. Mr Grayling's book may take non-philosophers some little way towards such liberation, and any progress in that direction is a good thing. However, it operates at surface level rather than looking at things in any depth. The book's title, like its sub-title, is misleading. This is skin-deep philosophising--which is not to say that skin does not have an important function, or that one cannot feel the tremor of the pulse upon it. It would not do, however, to confuse it with the heart of things.

Dr Chris Arthur teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Wales, Lampeter.